Brooke was about the same age as Becky Rosenfeld in this pic that Ki took when the family visited Turkey.

One thing that we can do is not despair, we can't save the whole world of this crap. But we can make a difference to one child in our own world, and Kiota told United Planet *exactly* this in her phone interview: to work carefully and compassionately with a single child to help heal her, to encourage her to feel she is not alone....

And I think the one child we can start with is ourself. To love and to take good care of our Inner Child, and our outer one too, filled with eagerness and light --- to work on keeping ourself safe and growing, as Ki was doing, right up into the last evening before she left.

And then we can spread the word, like this filmmmaker who's shot "Very Young Girls" .... maybe like I did, by telling all of you about it in my LJ. Like what happens in the survivors community here, and in mybodytaken...both of them places she belonged to, and where lots of us feel welcomed and supported...

It's all about *accountability*, isn't it. If these monsters were convinced that there was a 100% CERTAINTY they would suffer horrible deaths for inflicting the same thing on children....a lot of these events would never happen.

And there were other adults involved too, who did not care a whit about Brooke as a person with a soul and dreams, and they all deserve to be found and locked up forever, to prevent the next Brooke from happening and as an example to those who might be thinking about it ....

This is just awful.It's a sick, sick world we're living in and sometimes I'm questioning my desire to have children, because I *know* it's impossible to truly protect kids from all the sick fucks out there, and I don't know if I have the right to have babies, then. And the uncle... Have you read "The Handmaid's Tale"? He ought to be Particicutioned.

More things are coming to light: witness statement from a teen who survived in the ring [probably by going totally numb for years], telling about getting a note under her pillow one night that said she was special, had been specially selected by the President of the US to join a secret society, she would receive further instructions from the uncle. Three or four years of sex with uncle and friends commenced.

Like Ki, she was nine when this happened.

Cerainly you have the right to have babies, so does any other couple. But then comes the obligation to protect. I think the best way to do that is not to build a wall, but build a bridge of understanding and communication and caring when your daughter(s) get old enough, so they will know when something looks or sounds not right and be able to feel free to come to you *first*. And there are great parenting guides out there to help new parents do just that!

I know about the guides, I know about building a bridge of understanding - certainly my parents never did that and the only time through my adolescence [when I was stalked and repeatedly assaulted and harassed by strangers] someone noticed something's wrong, it was my grandmother and I denied it because I knew my parents would blame me. But then again, my parents were not aware of anything in that aspect, they come from a different environment, you didn't talk about it in the Soviet Union. So I learned from their mistakes, and certainly me having my own past, I am that much more sensitive to signs. But still - I know I can recognize that something's going on, I know I can get my child the best help in the country, I know I can support them until the cows come home - but the fact is that I can't prevent some things from happening. And that drives me mad.

Yeah, it's so familiar: "you didn't talk about it in the Soviet Union". Fill in the name of any country in the world ... [including Israel, of course, in Anna's life...] ..and I think it's great that you learned from their mistakes.

And while it's true that you can't prevent *some* things from happening, you CAN create the best conditions possible for preventing others from happening.....so your children are not scared but just prudent and aware, that she and he can trust from your experience instead of having to have any direct experience for themselves, when the time comes to share those things with them.

Hopefully the light will go on AND STAY ON with a lot of Vermont parents who will realize that now, twice in three years, sexual predators have killed women in high-profile cases. These monsters are *known* predators who had been allowed to go free to keep committing crimes. Either their state laws are not adequate to protect girls or they aren't being enforced effectively. It doesn't matter how great the cooperation is right now among the US Attorney, VT state police, and FBI is, now that she's gone.

Yeah, she'll be spared Kiota's ten years of torture, and that's comfort to many of us Friends here, who watched her go though that a lot longer than I did.

Imho the best idea is to castrate the idea of cruelty in men right out of their brains. And to castrate them somewhere else might not be a bad idea, either.

I was hoping this was not the case, that our earlier theory of "stupid teenaged stunts" was the actual truth & that she'd come home unharmed. Obviously, she's home now, just not in the unharmed fashion I'd hoped for.